SUNDAY 23
Feb. 23
OUTSIDE THE LINES: Unexpected Delights from Major Composers
Omaha Symphony’s Symphony Joslyn
Alexandra Rock, oboe
Christi Zuniga, piano
Michael Lyon, narrator
Thomas Wilkins, conductor
Joslyn Art Museum’s Witherspoon Hall
2200 Dodge St.
2 p.m. Tickets $10-$30http://www.omahasymphony.org
Leap into “Leap” by 30 year old American composer Benjamin Dean Taylor who’s also an accordionist, ukulele strummer and dixieland trumpet player. He’s been commissioned to write for The Omaha Symphony and was in town not long ago to take part in its New Music Symposium. At the tail end of the concert, KIOS-FM’s news anchor Michael Lyon authoritatively evokes a lion and other zoo inhabitants in versifier Ogden Nash’s whimsical verbal supplements to Saint-Saëns “Carnival of The Animals.” Dmitri Shostakovich makes an aural appearance from when he was in his late 20s, penning a neo-classical, frenchified score for a Russianized stage version of Balzac’s La Comedie Humaine. When even younger, Czech composer Leos Janácek created something rather light-hearted, the Suite for String Orchestra. Hints of his future folk-music inspirations surface. Likewise on tap is a friendly, gentle one-movement oboe concerto by Englishman Eugene Goosens. Expect to be charmed.